


When One Door Closes...

by townshend



Category: DmC: Devil May Cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:55:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/townshend/pseuds/townshend





	When One Door Closes...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [krityan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/krityan/gifts).



It was hard to be hopeful for humanity's future when the world was broken and flaming around them. The city Dante had come to know was in shambles, people were running every which way, screaming, and the thing Vergil wanted to talk about was who was going to take _charge_ of the situation?

"I never thought I'd live to see this day," Kat said, leaning over the railing, surveying the city with wonder as if it wasn't a massive pile of flaming wreckage. Still, Dante couldn't fault her for her joy - it was nice to see the fruit of their labor, even if it did come out looking like shit.

"It's the beginning of the end for the demons," Dante said, trying to focus on the positives. "Mankind will be free." But that was still future tense. From where he was standing, Limbo spilling out into the real world was a pretty big problem they _probably_ needed to be addressing.

On Kat's other side, Vergil shifted, turning his gaze towards the skyline. "Yes," he answered, slowly. "Free from the demons. The path is clear for us to rule."

And in that moment, it was as if there was a rift between them. Kat turned, almost robotically, stiffly moving away in horror. Even Dante inclined his head, brow furrowing.

"What did you just say?"

Vergil had turned, too, staring back, repeating his words as if they actually hadn't been heard. "The path is clear for us to rule," he said, eyebrows going up, inflection rising. To him, this was clearly obvious.

There were a _lot_ of things Dante wanted to say about that - but he didn't have the chance. Nearby, there was a sudden explosion, screams, the roar of demons pouring through the streets. Right now, it was clear to Dante that he was really needed elsewhere.

"I'm sure this would be a riveting conversation, but I gotta go. Catch you later, bro!" He turned, rushing towards the sudden sound, drawing Rebellion as he went. Kat's call of _"Dante! Wait!"_ went ignored.

He wasn't sure about "ruling", but he knew someone had to clean up the mess they'd made, and there weren't many people besides him who were capable of that.

 

 

Vergil found him hours later - even Dante couldn't fight demons forever, and had ended up sitting on the roof of a (deserted) pizza place with an open box next to him. He'd eaten half the pizza, and the rest looked cold, greasy, and unappetizing - Vergil frowned towards it, disgusted, before crossing the roof and coming to stand just behind his brother. Even though Dante didn't move, Vergil knew Dante knew he was there.

It was silent between them for a long time, before: "What did you mean back there?" Dante asked. "All that stuff about ruling."

Vergil didn't answer immediately - he recognized the need to carefully choose his words. "You've seen the city. The whole world is like this. Someone needs to pick up the pieces."

"And that should be you?" Dante turned, finally, craning his neck to turn his face up and over his shoulder to look at Vergil. His expression was hard to read.

"It should be _us_ ," Vergil corrected, maybe a little too enthusiastically. "We took down Mundus. We saved the humans from that fate."

"Didn't we save them so they could be _free_?" Dante asked.

Vergil had to keep himself from scoffing. "So you'd advocate for anarchy, then?"

Dante rolled his eyes, turning back forward, staring out over the city. This roof wasn't that high, so he couldn't really see much. "No," he said, slowly. Honestly, he didn't feel political enough for any of this. Dante hated to admit it, but he was better at shooting first, asking questions never - he could beat the crap out of any demon that came his way, but... all that had led to was the broken husk of the city around them. Sure, he had no disillusions that the city was worse off now than it had been under Mundus - cosmetically, maybe, but not in any way that actually mattered - but he also didn't have any illusions that he could do anything to fix what he'd turned it into.

He wasn't even entirely sure he could clear all the demons out. If Limbo had crashed into their world and Limbo was a source of demonic power, didn't that mean demons were going to keep coming until they found some way to seal Limbo back off? Anyone who wanted to rule this place would only be the king of Shit Mountain if this kept up.

"Do you think Kat can find a way to seal Limbo?" Dante asked. Vergil seemed a little surprised by the change in subject, but pressed his lips together, thinking.

"Maybe so. She's skilled at navigating it. Now that Limbo is in our world, it's possible she can interact with it even more freely than before. ...Or, it could be the other way around. Things might be _more_ difficult for her."

"We won't know until we try," Dante offered, pulling himself up. "Got any way to contact her?"

 

 

Kat wasn't too hard to find. Even though demons had been there before, it stood to reason that their base was secure in comparison to pretty much everywhere else. She was standing in a room Dante hadn't seen before - it looked like a kitchen - stirring something in a large pot over the stove.

"Is that for me?" Dante asked, striding in, Vergil close behind him. Kat seemed to freeze for a second before relaxing, but she didn't take her eyes from the pot.

"Not unless you _like_ desiccated squirrel semen," she quipped.

"Spells," Vergil said, as if Dante didn't realize by now, "not dinner."

"That's fine," Dante said, stretching arms over his head. "I filled up on pizza anyway."

"Is there really a need for that compound now?" Vergil asked, watching Kat with interest. "Limbo's already open."

"It's not for opening a portal," she explained. "Obviously that isn't our problem."

"Can we really go around closing them all though?" Dante asked, clearly skeptical. There was a small table against the wall, and he slid into one of the seats, kicking his feet up. "I mean, they've gotta be everywhere."

"Right. But I've been looking around, and while there _are_ portals pretty much everywhere, they're not normal portals. They're all attached to one central, I don't know, hub."

Vergil was already catching on. "And if we close that hub..."

"Exactly. Everything closes with it." Kat pulled the spoon from the pot, tapped it twice on the pot's edge, and set it on the counter, flipping the burner off. "Once that cools, it's can and go time."

Dante watched her in appreciation, but made no moves to get out of the chair just yet. "So we're about to play the biggest game of dominoes of all time." Close the hub and all the portals shut down - it sounded like fun to him. And, more responsibly, the sooner, the better. People around the world weren't exactly getting any better at lasting against demons.

Vergil ignored him. "Do you know where the hub is?"

"It opened when you killed Mundus. It's somewhere underground - probably somewhere deep below that tower."

Dante sighed audibly. "Back there, huh?" he asked, finally placing one hand on the tabletop and pushing himself to his feet. "I'm ready to level that place so I never have to go back."

"Let's wait until we can get underneath it." Kat smiled, just a little, but she looked nervous. Dante didn't know about _Vergil_ , but he was pretty sure, just by the look in Kat's eyes, that they were both thinking about what Vergil had said earlier that day.

 

 

Getting to the tower wasn't too difficult. Kat was stealthy enough that Dante didn't have to worry about protecting her, which suited him fine since he was more the "announce your arrival with as much gunfire as possible" type. He and Vergil didn't have any trouble fighting their way towards the tower at the city center - although there was a noticeable increase in demons the closer they got. It looked like Kat was right about the hub, as far as Dante could tell.

When they reached the tower entrance, Vergil and Dante held the demons back as Kat sprinted from her latest hiding place and into the building. Vergil threw the monster's he'd been holding backwards, Dante doing the same, and they both raced after her. With a quick pull, Dante grabbed the tower's entrance archway, already crumbled, and pulled down, sending a quick pile of stone rubble between them and the hoard of demons outside.

"That'll slow them down," Dante said with satisfaction.

"Where to now?" Vergil asked. Kat was looking around, humming thoughtfully.

"I didn't go anywhere underground the last time I was here," she said. "This building's massive. It would have been too hard to search everywhere."

"If there's anything underground, we can probably take a service elevator to get to it." Vergil approached a computer terminal at the front desk, frowning towards the display. "This thing has seen better days."

"If you can even get it to turn on it'll already be in better shape than most everything else in this city." Dante crossed arms over his chest, leaning against a nearby stone pillar. He didn't think he had any real aptitude for the computer stuff, but maybe he'd ask Vergil to teach him some pointers sometime after they were a little more secure. It seemed useful. 

It only took a few (long, tense) minutes before Vergil was able to get the computer running and start typing away, and a few moments later, there was a sound down the long hallway to Dante's left, a click, and a ding, and it seemed like Vergil had called the elevator they needed.

"Let's go," Vergil said, and Dante quickly followed after him, Kat on his heels. It looked like they _were_ on a freight elevator - it was wide and unfinished. Kat reached over, pressed the bottom-most basement button, and the doors shuddered closed as the elevator started to descend.

"Once we get the hub sealed... there's still a lot of work to be done," Kat said, quietly. Dante didn't respond immediately, not sure what to say - Vergil, however, answered easily.

"And we can do that," he said. "Just like we've handled everything up until now."

"Maybe we're not what the world needs," Dante said, finally. Speaking his opinion so candidly actually surprised _him_ \- both Vergil and Kat stared up at him, expectantly, assuming he'd say more. Dante shifted, wet his lips, and shrugged. "It's just--"

"We've gotten the world this far, haven't we?" Vergil asked. His tone was sharp and defensive. "Do you think anyone else could have done this? Could anyone else have saved the humans from the demons?"

"Of course not," Kat cut in. Vergil turned towards her so quickly Dante thought for a wild moment that he was going to slap her - but that didn't happen, and he felt instantly foolish for thinking it would. "We all know the world needed us. But that doesn't mean it needs us to guide them."

"We caused the current situation," Vergil argued. "We have to clean up our messes. We can lead humanity out of the darkness. _Only we_ can do that."

"Are you sure?" Dante leaned against the elevator wall, surveying Vergil carefully. "It sounds like the world's just switched hands from one demon to another."

"We are not demons," Vergil seethed, almost out of his teeth. "We're something else entirely."

...Well, Dante couldn't argue with that. Over the course of the last week or so, he'd learned plenty about both sides of himself - angel _and_ demon. And he and Vergil were the same - something different from Mundus. Something unique. Dante wasn't going to argue that Vergil had the _capacity_ to help humanity, but "helping" was pretty different from "ruling", and he could tell Kat hadn't really appreciated the word "ruling" either.

"Let's keep going," Kat said, finally, clearly trying to cool the tensions, "and see where we go from here."

"We have Kat to keep us in check," Dante said, watching Vergil carefully. "Right?"

"Of course." Vergil looked away, eyes hard on the elevator doors, clearly waiting for them to open.

 

 

Closing the hub was surprisingly simple - Dante and Vergil cleared a path for Kat, who was crafty and quick enough that they didn't need to really worry about her every move, and she got as close as she could to the center before laying down her spell. There was no stencil for this one - it was too big and unwieldy for something that simple. Instead, Dante watched between killing demons, intrigued with Kat's flowing movements, intricate patterns, and practiced sprays. Casting spells could be an art, huh? It was definitely interesting.

"Take my hands!" Kat called, and both Dante and Vergil took one of Kat's proffered hands and then each other's, forming a small circle in the center of Kat's spell. Kat didn't waste time, beginning to chant, but there were demons closing in on them, and Dante didn't know if he was supposed to be concentrating but he was having a hell of time doing it. He sucked in a breath, tensed his hands on Kat and Vergil's, and squeezed his eyes shut - and just as one of them raised a bladed hand to strike, Kat's chant finished, the hub closed, and the demons were pulled in with it, screaming. The hub fizzled out, a spark and then nothing.

Kat didn't release their hands immediately. They stood for a moment, watching each other, silent.

If anyone could do what needed to be done, Dante thought, it was definitely Kat and Vergil. Dante wasn't sure what _he_ could do, but if they wanted him there, he'd stay.

"Good job," Vergil said, finally releasing their hands. "It seems you're invaluable, Kat."

"Of course she is," Dante said, smiling.

"You're pretty useful yourself," Kat shot back. Vergil blinked, surprised, but then smiled a little himself.

Yeah... they could do this. Dante crossed arms over his chest and laughed.

He'd never had a family before... not that he could really remember. Maybe they could start now. Sure, they'd have to take it slow, but that was fine with him. And putting the world back together would give them something good to do. Maybe Dante could actually focus on something constructive for once in his life.

"Dante," Vergil called, already halfway to the elevator, Kat beside him. She glanced over her shoulder, an eyebrow raised. "You coming?"

"No way you're leaving me here!" Dante called, racing ahead. As he passed them, grabbing their arms, he thought he even heard Vergil _laugh_ \- and if that was the case, they were off to a damn good start already.


End file.
